OBJECTIVE: The lack of consensus regarding the role of vasopressin in uncontrolled hypertension may be due to the use of assays with limited sensitivity. We used plasma copeptin concentration (PCop), a reliable surrogate marker for plasma vasopressin, to evaluate its role in a large population of patients with resistant (RH) and non-resistant (NRH) essential hypertension. DESIGN AND METHOD: 166 patients with RH to > = 3 antihypertensive drugs, including a diuretic (office BP > = 140 or 90 mmHg), entered a 4-week standardized treatment with irbesartan 300 mg + HCTZ 12...

Partition systems contribute to stable plasmid inheritance in bacteria through the active separation of DNA molecules to daughter cells, and the centromeric sequence located either upstream or downstream of canonical partition operons plays an important role in this process. A specific DNA-binding protein binds to this sequence and interacts with the motor NTPase protein to form a nucleoprotein complex. The inc18-family plasmid pSM19035 is partitioned by products of δ and ω genes, with δ encoding a Walker-type ATPase and ω encoding a DNA-binding protein...

CONTEXT: The role of vasopressin (AVP) in the pathophysiology of primary aldosteronism (PA) remains unclear. OBJECTIVES: The primary aim of this study was to investigate AVP secretion in PA by measuring the plasma concentration of copeptin (PCop), the C-terminal portion of provasopressin. The secondary aim was to assess renal sensitivity to AVP. DESIGN AND SETTING: This was a cross-sectional study in a tertiary-care hospital. PROTOCOL: We recruited 115 patients with PA, 48 patients with essential hypertension (EH), and 108 normotensive healthy subjects (HS)...

BACKGROUND: The ONCOTYROL Prostate Cancer Outcome and Policy (PCOP) model is a state-transition microsimulation model evaluating the benefits and harms of prostate cancer (PCa) screening. The natural history and detection component of the original model was based on the 2003 version of the Erasmus MIcrosimulation SCreening ANalysis (MISCAN) model, which was not calibrated to prevalence data. Compared with data from autopsy studies, prevalence of latent PCa assumed by the original model is low, which may bias the model toward screening...

CSF outflow through the cribriform plate near the olfactory nerves and the outflow along brain and spinal nerves are together known as peripheral CSF outflow pathway (PCOP). It is still not clear whether the PCOP has pathogenetic relevance. Our previous clinical observations have indicated that CSF may interact with nerves along the PCOP and in this article we present our finding of CSF outflow demonstrated by myelography in a single patient. We also discuss unexplained experimental pain pathomechanisms against the background of the PCOP hypothesis...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Inhibition of brain aminopeptidase A (APA), which converts angiotensin II into angiotensin III, has emerged as a novel antihypertensive treatment, as demonstrated in several experimental animal models. QGC001 (originally named RB150) is a prodrug of the specific and selective APA inhibitor EC33, and as such it is the prototype of a new class of centrally acting antihypertensive agents. Given by the oral route in hypertensive rats, it enters the brain and generates EC33, which blocks the brain renin-angiotensin system activity and normalises blood pressure...

BACKGROUND: Capillary leak with pleural effusion and/or ascites in severe preeclampsia (SP) may be a reason for low plasma colloid osmotic pressure (PCOP) and deterioration of renal filtration function. The objective of this study was to report the frequency of pleural effusion and/or ascites in patients with SP and to compare the correlation with PCOP and renal filtration function. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional study that included 92 pregnant women with SP...

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) can affect not only bone marrow (BM) and peripheral blood (PB), but also the compartment of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Besides standard chemotherapy, specific and non-specific immunotherapy has been employed synergistically to treat AML patients. Here we report on a patient who received standard chemotherapy, unspecific immunotherapy with interleukin-2, as well as later specific CD8+ T-cell stimulation by RHAMM-R3 peptide vaccination. The patient maintained a complete remission in BM and PB, while he developed recurrent relapses in the CSF...

DNA microarray technology enables high-throughput gene expression analysis and allows researchers to test the activity of thousands of genes at one time in multiple cellular conditions. This approach is based on principal curves of oriented points (PCOP) analysis and minimum spanning trees to analyze temporal and nontemporal series data to relate the genes. PCOP is a very suitable method, non-hypothesis-driven, for nonlinear relationship recognition between multivariable sets of data. Initially, a gene-relations tree is generated from the correlation between each pair of genes, calculated by PCOP analysis...

The distribution of resources between enzymes of photosynthetic carbon metabolism might be assumed to have been optimized by natural selection. However, natural selection for survival and fecundity does not necessarily select for maximal photosynthetic productivity. Further, the concentration of a key substrate, atmospheric CO(2), has changed more over the past 100 years than the past 25 million years, with the likelihood that natural selection has had inadequate time to reoptimize resource partitioning for this change...

MOTIVATION: This application aims at assisting researchers with the extraction of significant medical and biological knowledge from data sets with complex relationships among their variables. RESULTS: Non-hypothesis-driven approaches like Principal Curves of Oriented Points (PCOP) are a very suitable method for this objective. PCOP allows for obtaining of a representative pattern from a huge quantity of data of independent variables in a very flexible and direct way...

To elucidate the role of a soil humic acid (HA) in the transport of polychlorinated organic pollutants (PCOPs), such as polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, polychlorinated dibenzofurans and coplanar-polychlorinated biphenyls, their partition coefficients (Kdoc) into an HA were compared with their adsorption coefficients (KOC) for a soil with a higher organic carbon (OC) content. The soil sample (ando soil) used in the present study was collected in the same location as the HA. The log Kdoc values were positively correlated with logarithm of octanol-water partition coefficients (log KOW) of the PCOPs, indicating that the partitioning of PCOPs into the HA was mainly due to hydrophobic interactions...

The purpose of this paper is to report on the ability of an in-house porcine corneal opacity and permeability assay (PCOP) to predict eye irritation for cosmetic ingredients. Preliminary studies showed that the PCOP assay could accurately predict eye irritation class for liquid and water soluble materials. To broaden our experience a larger study on 50 cosmetic ingredients of this group was conducted. A prediction model (PM) was obtained based on only one endpoint-permeability measured after 30-min exposure O...

We have modified the cell-free coupled transcription/translation system of bacteria. The cell-free extract of Pseudomonas fluorescens was used for translation instead of Escherichia coli. In addition, transcription of the target gene was regulated by CspA promoter with endogenous RNA polymerase instead of by T7 promoter with exogenous T7 RNA polymerase. We could increase the yields of soluble proteins using different combinations of the S30 extract and the promoter and different temperatures for protein synthesis...

At the transcriptional level, the pSM19035-encoded omega protein coordinates the expression of proteins required for control of copy number and maintenance of plasmids. Using circular dichroism, fluorescence spectroscopy, ultracentrifugation and an electrophoretic mobility shift assay, the wild-type omega protein and a variant with a C-terminal hexa-histidine tag (omega-H(6)) were characterized. The omega protein is mainly alpha-helical (42%), occurs as homodimer in solution, unfolds thermally with half transition temperatures, T(m), between approximately 43 and approximately 78 degrees C depending on the ionic strength of the buffer, and binds PcopS-DNA with high affinity...

A biomimetic bilayer membrane immobilizing uricase (urate oxidase; EC 1.7.3.3) (UOx) and a redox agent of 1-methoxy-5-methylphenazinium (MMP) was fabricated on an Au electrode substrate with use of the Au substrate coated with a self-assembled monolayer of n-octanethiolate (OT/Au) and L-alpha-phosphatidylcholine beta-oleoyl-gamma-palmitoyl (PCOP). The preparation was carried out by successively immersing an Au electrode substrate in an ethanol solution of OT, an MMP aqueous solution, and a suspension of proteoliposome formed by PCOP containing UOx and MMP...